As the Borderlands 4 release date nears, 2K Games and Gearbox have seen fit to give fans a glimpse of what to expect from the upcoming looter shooter in a PlayStation State of Play Deep Dive. The video jumps straight into the action, giving us more hints about what to expect from the new vault hunters that will be the center of the story on Kairos. The presenters finally revealed the names of two of the new vault hunters: The siren is called Vex, and the soldier-class hunter is called Rafa; so far, the other two vault hunters still remain a mystery. The deep dive provided a small glimpse at what to expect from the various vault hunters, with the two mentioned above receiving the most attention throughout. Rafa is a former Tediore soldier with an experimental exo-suit able to conjure energy weapons—including some long arm-mounted blades that look lethal for melee combat—and enhance his physical attributes, while Vex features the usual siren pseudo-magical abilities that enable her to summon minions, manipulate her enemies, and buff her own abilities. We only got glimpses of the other two vault hunters in action: The burly vault hunter than has often been likened to a viking shows off an energy shield, similar to what we saw from Athena in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. As expected, he seems to be something of a close-quarters combatant. The other female vault hunter, who has comically been referred to as "pants lady" in online discussions, showed off the ability to use something similar to a Siren's phase lock ability, although that's all we have seen from her aside from what was shown of previously.

In terms of plot, the only real plot-relevant mission shown off in the deep dive occurs when the POV player is at level 24, and the vault hunters are on a mission to rescue Lilith from a fortress, where it is discovered that a villain is seemingly conducting human experiments. The planet Kairos has been ruled and seemingly kept out of danger by the Timekeeper, who used cybernetic implants and a fanatical organization called The Order to maintain order, but the whole system was thrown into disarray when Lilith teleported the moon Elpis into Kairos's orbit at the end of Borderlands 3, six years prior to the events unfolding in Borderlands 4. The disruption of the Timekeeper's order has caused an uprising in the people, resulting in many of its citizens crudely removing their cybernetic brain implants and apparently causing brain damage in the process. The State of Play deep dive also gave us some ideas of what to expect from its overhauled skill trees, weapons mods, loot mechanics, and greatly enhanced mobility options.

2K Games just announced that Borderlands will launch almost two weeks earlier than expected, moving the release date from September 23 to September 12. Nothing else regarding the release seems to have changed, with even the launch trailer even remaining unchanged with the old September 23 release date still present. 2K Games and Gearbox haven't specified a reason for the release date switch-up, but it's currently theorized that the looter-shooter was moved to make space for the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI.

Rumors and leaks previously indicated that GTA VI would launch sometime around October or November 2025, and we previously reported that game developers were already nervous about launching games within at least two weeks of the launch of GTA VI. The concern was that GTA VI would overshadow any other games that released even remotely close to it. It seems as though even a genre giant like Borderlands 4 isn't immune to this effect. Currently, the only concrete information about the GTA VI launch date is a confirmation that it will launch in "Autumn 2025," and indications are that the PC version will only arrive in early 2026. Borderlands 4, on the other hand, will have a simultaneous multi-platform launch, coming to Steam, Epic Games, Xbox Series X|S, and PS5 on day one—there has been talk of a Nintendo Switch 2 port, but that release date is thus far unknown. Along with the new launch date, 2K Games has also announced that it will host a Borderlands 4 gameplay showcase on April 30 at 14:00 PT (21:00 UTC).

The launch of Grand Theft Auto VI is such a hotly anticipated game launch that Corsair seems to think the game's PC launch will have a noticeable effect on the sales of gaming hardware and peripherals. Some fans have even speculated that 2K was planning the launch of Borderlands 4—itself a sequel to a massively popular franchise—around the expected launch of GTA VI. While this was previously mere speculation, comments from publishers lend credence to this theory. According to The Game Business, as many as three major game publishers have said that they are preparing to shift their game launches so that they don't get completely overshadowed by the launch of GTA VI.

The unnamed studios specifically called out GTA VI in their comments, with concerns ranging from gamers spending all their time and money on GTA VI to the new GTA title simply dominating the news cycle and making other games fall through the cracks. Several live-service game developers also commented that they would be delaying any updates to their games, with one suggesting a three-to-four week window would be the expected safe zone for most developers. It should be noted that this "safe zone" is both before and after the expected release of GTA VI, so there may be a wave of games and updates just before and just after GTA VI. While GTA VI wasn't directly mentioned, EA CEO, Andrew Wilson, has previously stated that "some things happening in the year that may cause us to think differently about our launch timing," specifically talking about the launch of Battlefield 6, which is currently slated for release before the end of Q1 2026.

Despite some minor complaints about in-game performance and optimization, it's plain to see that Monster Hunter Wilds has been a successful launch for Capcom, but it has now been confirmed that Monster Hunter Wilds is topping both sales charts for February and 2025 so far. This is according to a report by Circana (via VG247), which claims that Monster Hunter Wilds managed to secure the top spot in February's and game sales across all the platforms where it is available, at least for the US market. Given the game series's popularity in Asia, it's likely a similar story played out there. SteamDB's data indicates that Monster Hunter Wilds has sold between 4.47 million and 5.96 million copies on Steam alone, with the peak concurrent player count reaching a whopping 1,384 608 players. Still, Wilds is currently in eighth position on the Steam Charts top sellers list or fourth if you consider the year to date. Previously, Monster Hunter Wilds also managed to surpass 8 million copies sold in just 3 days after release. All that said, these records are unlikely to last, since 2025 is stacking up to be a monumental year for gaming.

Both GTA VI and Borderlands 4 are slated for launch later this year, and while Borderlands 4 itself is hotly anticipated, GTA VI's announcement trailer broke YouTube's view records in the first 24 hours when it was first published. Since then, GTA VI's trailer has attracted 245 million views on YouTube. While GTA VI is slated to launch sometime in late 2025, it will be a console exclusive, meaning Monster Hunter Wilds and Borderlands 4 will likely be some of the biggest franchise launches for Steam this year. GTA VI has been rumored to be launching on PC in early 2026, although it's unclear if it will be launched to Steam at that time. Ubisoft also just launched Assassin's Creed Shadows to a somewhat mixed reception. While it remains to be seen how sales play out for Shadows, it is currently second on the top sellers chart on SteamDB.

The lead-up to the release of Borderlands 4 has been rife with release date speculation, feature wish lists, and no shortage of complaints about visuals and character design. Today, however, at PlayStation State of Play, Take Two released a new trailer for Borderlands 4 and finally confirmed a September 23 release date for the upcoming looter shooter.

As is to be expected from any trailer dropping months ahead of the official game launch, gameplay details are slyly hinted at instead of directly advertised, but there is a lot of information hidden in the latest Borderlands 4 trailer. For starters, the trailer confirmed that Borderlands 4 appears to be getting some serious mobility enhancements, including a new double jump mechanic—which would be the first time since Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel that a Borderlands game allows players to properly redirect in the air. Alongside with double jumping, the new trailer gives us a hint at what to expect from new weapons and character abilities.

The Borderlands 4 trailer recently hinted at some sweeping tone shifts for the upcoming looter shooter RPG, and Gearbox Studio's creative and narrative director for Borderlands 4, Sam Winkler, recently confirmed that the shift in tone will extend to the game's character writing and humor. In a series of posts on X, Winkler said "I remain firm in my criticism of BL3's overabundance of toiler humor," going on to explain that there will still be toilet humor, and the idea of a Hawk Tuah reference in-game was being thrown around. "Paul Tassi joked that we were gonna have a gun called Hawk 2A and a fellow dev asked me if it was real and I wanted to put my hand down the sink grinder."

While the Borderlands 4 trailer has generated plenty of hype around the upcoming instalment to the franchise, it hasn't gone without its criticisms. However, the apparent changes to the game's visuals and tone—specifically away from the over-the-top nature of Borderlands 3—have been almost universally positively received, with many fans now expecting a return to the glory days of Borderlands 2. Writing has never been the highlight of the Borderlands franchise, but most seem to agree that Borderlands 3 often went too far with the jokes, to the detriment of the overall experience.

As expected, a new trailer for Borderlands 4 officially launched at The Game Awards this week, and, although it has poured cold water on speculation of the return of Gaige, the DLC vault hunter from Borderlands 2, there are some intriguing details in the trailer. For starters, we got a look at what looks to be the next Borderlands villain—or maybe even villains—and it looks like the inter-faction conflicts will play a much larger role in Borderlands 4, with larger-scale conflicts at least being part of the lore, if not the actual gameplay.

The new Game Awards trailer picks up where the previous teaser trailer left off, as teased by Gearbox CEO, Randy Pitchford, but it turns out the robotic arm didn't belong to Gaige, the mechromancer, as previously suspected. Instead, the character picking up the mask at the start of the new trailer appears to be the cruel leader of some sort of robotic bandit militia preparing to do battle against an army of soldiers or drones, who bear some similarities to the Eridian from past Borderlands games and are being led by a single general, who also seems to be a main villain in the game—perhaps some invading force looking to exploit the planet. The resulting conflict between the two rival factions is on a larger scale than we've seen in previous Borderlands games, although there have always been inter-faction conflicts in Borderlands games. Of course, new enemies and factions aren't the only details included in the new Borderlands 4 trailer.

The annual Game Awards is just around the corner, with the opening night scheduled for December 12, and gaming industry big-shots have teased that there are big announcements coming. One such announcement is the reveal of the second Borderlands 4 trailer, which is all but confirmed for The Game Awards, thanks to Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software. We already know the game is planned for release sometime in 2025, but fans are itching to know more about what's to come from the looter shooter that dominated the early 2010s. Around the same time, Andy Robinson, CEO of Video Game Chronicle, teased that he is "Expecting a VERY big Game Awards next week," going on to hype up his followers with "Fire up the hype train."

Pitchford, who has a reputation for being very active on X, recently posted a not-so-subtle confirmation that Gearbox was working on a new trailer for Borderlands 4. Without revealing much more, Pitchford teased that the next trailer would start where the first left off, suggesting that we may find out more about whom the cybernetic arm at the end of the teaser trailer belongs to. So far, prevailing fan theories and speculation around the owner of said arm propose that it is a hint at the return of Gaige, a playable character, and fan favorite, from Borderlands 2. This is a plausible guess, since the Borderlands franchise is known for bringing back characters from previous games, and it wouldn't be the first time we will have seen a former playable character turn NPC.